>>I found a problem. Somehow the lcPattern variable definition was changed. Instead of
>>

lcPattern=left(tcDBFName,lnPos+1)+'???'+substr(tcDBFName,lnPos+4)

>>it was something different. Therefore the program just didn't do anything...
>>
>>I'm testing the speed difference right now.
>>
>>>>Should I revert the code back to the original cursor idea?
>>>
>>>As far as effeicent goes, I'd bet that the cursor idea is faster anyways, so yes. You could easily test it out.
>
>If speed is the issue, and you're replacing a character by character (not string by string), you may check using ChrTran() instead of StrTran() - it should be faster.
>
>Another handy trick, assuming you're replacing two characters with three question marks, instead of
>

lcPattern=left(tcDBFName,lnPos+1)+'???'+substr(tcDBFName,lnPos+4)

>you could use
>

lcPattern=Stuff(tcDBFName,lnPos+2, 2, '???')

>A single function should be faster than two functions plus two string concatenateions. Besides, I always thought that all the string chopping functions (left, right, substr()) are internally done as Stuff() with special parameters.

Thanks for the insight, Dragan. This is a minor enhancement, but I'll put it also. The problem is that I have text files (produced as a result of copy to command). I need these files to not have double quotes as Field separators, e.g. remove all " from these text files. These files could be huge (up to 30MB). Therefore I'm searching for the most efficient way to achieve my goal.